Sei Ikeno

Images of gruesomely deformed bodies haunt Yasuzô Masumura’s heady anti-war masterpiece, which sidesteps the empty glory of combat to tend to the wounds of the soul. A quivering light in a world dominated by men, Ayako Wakao’s traumatized nurse embodies the horrors that exist beyond the battlefield.

Selling their souls in a cut-throat race for profit, the salarymen in Yasuzô Masumura’s dog-eat-dog vision of industrial Japan are as ruthless as lowly criminals. Laying bare the dirty tactics of corporate espionage, this visceral parable casts a shadow over the nation’s postwar economic miracle.